Right Thinking from the Left Coast

Tag: Tamir Rice

I wish I could say I’m surprised that there was no indictment in the Tamir Rice case. But I’m not. It has been obvious for a while that this was coming. It was obvious from the War on Cops bullshit that was trotted out every time the case was discussed (this year will end up being the second safest year for cops on record — behind 2013). It was obvious from the talk by prosecutors about how we could only judge the officers about what happened in those two seconds between when they jumped out of the car and when they shot him. It was obvious from the way no one cared that the officers’ initial statements were full of lies or that they left Rice to bleed to death after he was shot. It was obvious from when the prosecutors tapped Kim Crawford as their forensic expert — a woman who once said shooting an unarmed woman carrying a baby through the head was justified. It was obvious from the statements about Tamir Rice’s father (and today’s statements about Rice himself).

And that’s really the point. We’re no longer surprised when two officers — one of which had a settled excessive force complaint; one of whom resigned from another police job because of his emotional instability — roll up in a car, give a 12-year old boy two seconds to react before gunning him down, leave him to bleed to death like a dog, arrest his sister and have a grand jury decided that it was all justified. That’s where we are on law enforcement accountability. We’re lucky they’re not getting medals.

One subject that came up at the debate was the support Bernie Sanders (and, in fact, most Democrats) gave to a bill that immunized gun manufacturers from lawsuits. You can check out Walter Olson and David Freddoso on why this law was absolute necessary and correct. The law does not protect them from being sued if they produce defective products or break the law. What it protects them from is the “legislation through litigation” tactics Democrats were using to bypass the political process. The idea was that, unable to get what they wanted through the legislature, they would sue and sue and sue and sue the gun makers until the gun makers capitulated to Democratic demands.

There are a lot of Democrats who think that politicians with unlimited resources suing businesses into compliance with their demands is legitimate. A friend described this as “business and government working together for the common good”. I ask them to imagine how they’d react if Republican Governor’s started suing abortion clinics.

Two investigators have determined that the shooting of Tamir Rice was justified. Leon Neyfakh walks through the logic that is being in these analyses, which basically ignore any of the circumstances and require juries to engage in what Ta-Nehisi calls “an act of telepathy” to judge the officer’s thoughts in that moment. Basically, you’re supposed to ignore the decision to roll up right next to him in a car and jump out waving a gun. You’re supposed to ignore that they left him bleeding to death for many minutes. All you’re supposed to consider is what they thought in the precise moment they pulled the trigger. Under that logic, it’s hard to think of a situation where a shooting wouldn’t be justified.

Keep in mind, ordinary citizens are not usually given this benefit of a doubt. If you wake up to find someone smashing down your door and fire a gun, you can be be prosecuted for attempted murder.

Also keep in mind that these were both prosecution-picked experts who have a history of deferring to law enforcement on these matters. Kimberly Crawford is a name that should ring some bells. She was the investigator who concluded that the sniper shot that killed Vicki Weaver — an unarmed woman standing in the door of her own home carrying a 10-month old baby — was justified. That conclusion was so egregious even if the FBI rejected it. You don’t ask someone like Crawford their opinion unless you already have the answer in mind.

The worst answer Hillary Clinton gave the other night was about her enemies. Among those she listed were the pharmaceutical and insurance industries. But these are actually her biggest backers.

This is why I like Sanders better than Clinton. At least he’s an honest socialist. Clinton is a lying crony capitalist.

There is a quiet budget battle going on. As far as I can tell, the fight is between Republicans who want to increase spending and Democrats who want to increase spending.

For all the grief the sequester gets, it has cut our deficit to the lowest level, as a percent of GDP, since Clinton was in office. And I have yet to see the country descend into chaos and anarchy. I see no reason to end the sequester now.